Yeah, it separated the wheat from the chaff. Janeway did nothing wrong.
Transporters just kill everyone all the time anyways. The original Tuvok and Neelix were already long dead. What happens to their Nth copy hardly matters.
He had died a thousand deaths, he feared not one more.
She literally murdered him
I am here to explain this once again. Neelix and Tuvok were dead. They died in a transporter accident. They died painlessly and unaware of their fate. Tuvix was not dead. Begged not to be killed. And was painfully aware of the fate they were forced to suffer.
It does not matter if you have a magic wand that can magic two people back for the cost of one other, she chose to kill someone, who was begging to her face to be spared. It is as simple as that. What other innocent people would you choose to kill in order to bring back others you deem more valuable? The closest parallel I can think of in the real world would be if someone bundled you off the street and explained that they were going to remove your heart to give it to Joe Biden as you are the best blood and tissue match. You won’t survive this procedure but let’s be honest, Joe Biden is way more useful to the establishment than you, whoever you are.
The episode is great and I would never ask for it to be changed, it added a lot of depth to Janeway as a character, but it was also straight up murder.
Exactly, the trolly problem describes a murder too. The question it presents “is murder ever justified” and it’s not meant to have a “correct” answer, it’s meant to study how people react to two seemingly equivalent scenarios.
I think Voyager’s “is it ok to push the fat man if his death resurrects two previously dead people and also increases the chances of getting everyone home” twist on the scenario is really interesting and I love that it always without fail gets people debating.
and people whose heart stop… we revive them, and then they are not dead any more. if someone is able to be revived, it’s irrelevant what you called them before that point: their… let’s say potential state? is not dead
It certainly didn’t live up to Federation ideals.
But then again Sisko should be a war criminal for using Biogenic weapons.
If you want to see someone do the ethically correct thing 10/10, even in the face of Starfleet failing to, Jean Luc is your captain.
I’ll bet Janeway and Sisko’s music playlists are a lot more fun though.
The whole theme of the show is the battle of the ideals which work great in the alpha quadrant vs the reality of their situation
Yeah, he was largely operating in safe space and still made some unethical decisions.
Janeway was willing to make the hard calls that would best serve her ship and it’s future, having your cook and your third in command get fused isn’t exactly going to result in a functioning chain of command.
Plus since the operation could be reversed, you could argue that Tuvok and Neelix aren’t actually dead, merely suspended animation like storing people in a transporter buffer. You’re still killing Tuvix, but sacrificing one to save two is “the needs of the many” in it’s most simplistic form even without the added weight of hundreds of lives depending on Tuvok’s leadership and tactical skills.
I never once considered Janeway to be out of line given her circumstances. The crew always comes first even at the cost of her own humanity and ethics. She’s a good captain, willing to make the call that ends lives and live with it so that others may not have to endure those decisions and consequences. She didn’t ask anyone else to do that for her.
If you abandon your principles when things get hard then they’re not principles; they’re hobbies.
True. Then you are removed and replaced by someone who does what you won’t.
It’s tricky. I think its also important to weigh in that a lot of these captains and folks in executive position spent their entire working life to get to X position. It must be hard to walk away from a life goal, which I assume is what pushes them to, “do what needs to be done.” The lingering question remaining, “Did it really need to he done?”
There are a lot of instances where the Enterprise crew wanted to do the ethical thing, and Picard stops it or tries to. For example, when Dr. Crusher wanted to help when that planet population was addicted to drugs, and Picard wouldn’t let her do that or communicate anything to them.
Also, Data once found humans frozen in space, and when he helped them, Picard was annoyed; it wasn’t even a Prime Directive issue!
Even Picard broke the PD multiple times. If we are basing ethics on that then he’s no better.
Every captain in starfleet seems to treat it more like the Prime Suggestion.
In fairness, Picard is extremely upfront and honest that he has broken the Prime Directive in situations where he’s felt it would be callous not to.
Separately, he also said that while rules are a good thing, rules cannot be universally absolute.
Another thing he’s said is that Starfleet doesn’t want officers that will blindly follow orders, but rather to think about them seriously and weigh them in their minds.
Janeway straight up said to another captain that she’s never broken the Prime Directive in her life, despite clearly doing it a bunch of times. She’s in denial.
That’s my only real issue with her is her comment to the Nova class captain about it.
However, I give her the benefit of the doubt here because she’s clearly trying to encourage him that they don’t need to abandon their morality. If she tells him that she’s done it half a dozen times or so then he might be more likely to assume that’s the standard.
Now we all know in hindsight that he’d already committed an atrocity and wanted assurance from Janeway that he wasn’t alone in his decisions to prioritize crew over other sapient beings, but she was simply seeing the younger version of herself in him and attempting to assure him that he doesn’t have to give up hope and sink to those depths.
Voyager has more of a problem with character writing consistency than it does an issue with Janeway specifically, IMO.
In fairness, Picard is extremely upfront and honest that he has broken the Prime Directive in situations where he’s felt it would be callous not to.
And he’s generally careful about trying to make sure that there is justification for breaking the Prime Directive before doing so.
He was particularly put out about being involved in Klingon political successsion because it would be a violation of the Prime Directive, and he’d be wading into Klingon business, with no justification for his being so, other than that he was appointed.
I believe the only reason nothing happened to him was because of Bajor, with him being seen as an Emissary to the Bajoran people, punishing Sisko would Punishing the Prophets chosen one, they wanted Bajor in the federation no matter what, that was the end goal, so leaving Sisko essentially unpunished was right for the greater goal of bringing in Bajor.
I mean, that logic was only ever applied by the Vulcans as a personal choice/sacrifice, not something to be enforced by the barrel of a… er… phaser.
Spock sacrificed himself, it wasn’t done forcibly against his will. Kirk didn’t order the execution of one man so that others could live.
I don’t think we should take a slogan as an absolute moral lesson, you can justify all kinds of evil with it.
E.g. your organs could save dozens of lives. Would it be right to pin you down, kill you, and remove them, so that others can live? Surely one life lost is a worthy price to pay? The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, after all.
Ethics are a lot more complex than a catchy slogan.
I would have been on Tuvix’s side if they were cuter but I still see their face in my nightmares.
Tuvix is literally just a Trolley Problem scenario with a fancy costume. No more, no less. And the whole point of the trolley problem is that there isn’t any single “correct” answer.
There is an out of control trolley. You can’t stop it. On the trolley’s current track, there are two people. If you do nothing, they will die when the trolley hits them. But you’re at a track switch, and can divert the trolley to an alternate track. On that second track, there is one person who will die if the trolley hits them. Do you pull the lever? If you pull the lever, are you murdering the one? If you don’t pull the lever, are you complicit in the deaths of the two?
In this case, the trolley is the transporter accident; Janeway has the ability to pull the lever and reverse the accident. If she chooses not to, she is essentially refusing to pull the lever, thereby condemning the two people on the first track to die. But if she reverses the accident, she is pulling the lever and killing the one.
Janeway decided the answer to “should you pull the lever” was “yes”. She pulled the lever, saved the two, and killed the one. Sure, you could argue that pulling the lever is murdering the one. But if you sit by and do nothing, aren’t you willfully (maybe even maliciously) negligent? After all, you have the opportunity to save the lives of two, while minimizing damage to only one person.
Philosophers will try to change the trolley problem to fit different scenarios. What if it’s a bunch of convicted felons on the first track, and an innocent child on the second track? What if it’s a bunch of your friends and family on the first track, and your worst enemy on the second? What if, what if, what if… But the base question is always the same; Do you choose to do nothing and let many die, or actively kill the one? What is the tipping point where your decision changes?
This is not a trolley problem in that there is sequence involved:
1: Tuvok and Neelix alive before transport
2: Tuvok and Neelix dead and a new rational being in their place. This being had a moral blank slate and are thus blameless for the circumstances of creation.
3: Janeway decides that the speech she gave to the Vidiians was just hot air and that she will kill Tuvix to get the original two back. (Non lethal ways were explored, but quickly abandoned)
4: The blameless being makes an articulate case for their life, and even addresses the “needs of the many” argument by stating the truth: the other two are gone and the new being is there. (Raw, unalloyed utilitarianism is problematic at best, just ask the people of Omelas Majalis)
5: The doctor straight up says that the procedure is unethical and refuses to do it.
6: Janeway does it anyway.
Calling it a trolley problem is reductive and inaccurate.
(Edited for typo.)
- The doctor has his ethical subroutines preventing him from doing harm.
That is fine in a doctor/patient relationship, but the captain has a captain/crew relationship, she would cause a lot of harm and loose two good crew members if she had let it be.
The two crew members that were lost at the same time Tuvix appeared? The dead (not alive) ones? And again, square this with the speech she gave the Vidiians.
If you’re going to refute, then address the whole thing.
even addresses the “needs of the many” argument by stating the truth: the other two are gone and the new being is there.
articulate case for their life, and even addresses the “needs of the many” argument by stating the truth: the other two are gone and the new being is there
That only addresses the needs of Tuvok and Neelix. What about the rest of the crew whose chances of survival and reaching home are materially hindered by the effective loss of a crew member. Presumably Tuvix isn’t going to work 8 hours in the galley then straight away 8 hours on tactical. What if there’s an emergency that needs both skillets at the same time? What if Tuvix is killed in six months time on an away mission?
It’s true that Tuvok and Neelix were gone, but the option now existed to have them both back. So the fact that they were gone is reductive and inaccurate. Again ultimately Janeway has around 150 lives to think of, not just three.
The doctor straight up says that the procedure is unethical and refuses to do it.
Because he’s a doctor. I doubt he’d be able to order someone into a jefferies tube to fix an ODN conduit in an active warp plasma shaft. Yet that’s literally part of the bridge officers test. https://youtu.be/rC6rGoyEe2s?si=ho_FOBjSaUdTRurX
Janeway’s own log started that Tuvix was better than the sun of the parts; a better cook and tactical officer. The point of a team is that no one person is a point of failure. Factoring in a hypothetical future scenario is spurious.
An extrajudicial execution (to be charitable) for no crime is beyond most ethical frameworks.
And not one person has even tried to reconcile the speech to the Vidiians.
the whole point of the trolley problem is that there isn’t any single “correct” answer.
Yeah, this exactly. However, the nature of fandoms and especially online fan communities means that rather considering the question bilaterally, people will argue for decades and factions will form 🤷
Tuvix adds another element though. Tuvok and Neelix were already dead and Tuvix was alive. I think that makes this different from the standard trolley problem - still a hard choice but not the same.
Yup. This is my problem with it.
IMO, once Neelix and Tuvok stop existing, they are dead. They have no consciousness, they aren’t around. They’re gone. They’re ex-people. They’re not sad about the situation, because they no longer exist. There’s no brain there to process any of this. Once you are dead, you don’t have a right to live, especially not if it means the death of another.
Tuvix, on the other hand, existed. He was conscious, self aware, intelligent, alive. He was dragged, crying, begging for his life, pleading for anybody to step in and stop him from being murdered. Then he was killed to bring two people back to life.
Now I know people will say “but 2 is more than 1, so it’s fine to kill him”, but that’s never sat right with me. What was that Picard speech about arithmetic not being a good reason for discarding the rights of sentient beings?
Tbh I’m astounded the Star Trek community is massively on the “murder of an innocent is ok if it saves more people and he’s a little ugly” side
Death is a moving line, even today. There’s a reason doctors don’t declare death until there’s no way to revive a patient. Using that same logic, if there’s a way to revive Neelix / Tuvox, are they dead? It’s going to come down to how you personally define death.
I found it strange the claim started with the language “a Trolley Problem” and concluded with the language “the trolley problem”.
It seems one could make any choice into “a” trolley problem. But Tuvix problem is certainly not “the trolley problem”. This is about emergence of consciousness. In the trolley problem, the characters cease to exist. Neither choice here would end, say, Tuvok’s consciousness.
Neither choice here would end, say, Tuvok’s consciousness.
Arguable, since the result is neither Tuvok nor Neelix, but a new one based on those two. They’re not active, seperate consciousness stuffed into a Tuvixian body.
And unwinding Tuvix ends Tuvix’s consciousness. Neither Tuvok or Neelix keep Tuvix as part of themselves afterwards, he’d basically die if that was to happen.
